Carried On the Wings of a Thousand Paper Cranes
by windscryer
Summary: Peter is shot and Neal is conspicuously absent in the aftermath. When Elle hunts him down she expects sorrow and guilt, not this. Not a character death. Gen.


My life sort of exploded this week and I should be doing so many other things than this, but if I don't stop and do something just for me and just for fun, there could be more literal explosions in my very near future. -_-;

Written for and flailed over by Lu.

Disclaimer: Neal's collar would be a literal one around his neck instead of an anklet if I was in charge of the show. What? I like collars, okay? We all have our kinks. DON'T JUDGE ME FOR MINE. :P

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><p>When Jones showed up at her office and interrupted a meeting with a client, she knew it wasn't good. Oddly, her first thought was that something happened to Neal. That kind of made sense though when she thought about it.<p>

Peter would have continued working to catch the son of a bitch, or accompanied his friend and quasi-partner to the hospital. He would have sent someone else, like Jones, to inform her of what happened. She supposed the reverse might have been true as well, except that it wasn't.

When Jones told her it was _Peter_ who was in surgery, she actually shifted to the side a little to see if Neal was behind him. Then she blinked and realized that _of course_ he was at the hospital waiting for news. She'd apologized to her clients, ended the meeting, and followed Jones to the car.

But Neal wasn't at the hospital.

He wasn't waiting in the private room the doctor led them to where he explained that Peter was doing as well as could be expected and that they were cautiously optimistic, despite the close proximity of the bullet to a major artery.

He wasn't at the vending machines where she found Mozzie, of all people, muttering about conspiracies to make the American population fat and thus prepare the country for the inevitable invasion by a foreign nation with the help of rogue CIA elements. Not that his theories were unusual, but his presence here was. Sort of.

He wasn't at the nurse's desk trying to charm information out of anyone or dressed in pilfered scrubs to sneak back to the OR and make discreet inquiries or take a peek at Peter's charts.

When she finally thought to ask Jones where he was, the young man said he didn't know. Neal had vanished from the scene as soon as the ambulance had left. He hadn't broken his boundary because there was no text alert on Jones' phone, but other than that he couldn't say without requesting an update from the Marshals. She declined when he offered.

He probably needed some time to think and she needed a little of that herself. She'd have Jones find him when they knew something about Peter's condition.

o.o

It wasn't until almost a day and a half later when Peter woke up and asked that she realized she still hadn't seen the thief-cum-unofficial-agent.

She left to get the doctor and find Jones to ask him to make that request and when she returned Peter was asleep again and on the tray in front of him sat a single origami crane. It was exquisitely delicate and exotically beautiful in the red and gold patterned paper it was folded from. There was no note, no sign of who had left it, but Elle had her suspicions.

She picked it up and held it in her hands, then sighed. She just wished he would have stayed. She shook her head and retook her seat by Peter's bed. At least they knew he was alive and not getting into trouble.

Well, they knew he was alive anyway.

o.o

Three days passed and Peter was released to go home and finish his recuperation. He tried to get Jones to bring him casework, but the agent refused, saying he had been expressly forbidden from doing so both by Hughes and Elle. Besides, they'd got the guy who'd shot Peter.

Or, more specifically, the guy had showed up at the office yesterday morning and turned himself in. He wouldn't say why, but he was more than a little nervous and quite insistent that he didn't need to talk to any lawyers.

Peter had groaned and asked what Neal had done, but Jones shook his head and said that he hadn't seen Neal since the shooting and there was nothing funny about their suspect's confession. Nothing that would screw up their case anyway.

Peter's expression had blanked for half a second. "What do you mean you haven't seen Neal since the shooting?"

Jones shrugged. "He hasn't been into the office."

"Get me his—" Peter started.

"Already done, boss. Every day I check on his tracking information. He's been in his apartment the whole time."

"Send someone—"

"Also done. He wouldn't let Diana in, but she verified it was him and he was in the room."

Peter let this sink in. "How was he?"

Jones shrugged and looked down at the floor as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "She said he looked about like you'd expect for a man who almost got a friend killed."

Peter's eyes closed and Elle felt her heart twist in her chest.

"But," Jones continued, "she also said he wasn't completely drunk and he wasn't wallowing. Apparently he was painting."

Peter's eyes opened and he arched an eyebrow. Jones smiled. "The Mona Lisa. I doubt he's going to use it in any kind of heist."

"Let's hope not," Peter said on a sigh. He thought for a few more moments, then said. "Keep an eye on him for now. I'll go see him—" He stopped and looked at Elle who just stared back levelly. "—When my doctor says I can leave the house again."

He smiled and she beamed.

"I knew I married a smart man," she said and bent to press a kiss to his cheek.

He grinned back and then refocused on Jones. "Go," he dismissed with a wave of his hand and a wince for the way it pulled his healing muscles. "Let me know if anything happens."

Jones nodded and let himself out as Elle fetched more painkillers.

"You saw him in the hospital, right?" he said after downing the pills. "How did he look to you?"

She shook her head. "I didn't see him."

He paused in the middle of lowering the glass of water. "Really? But the crane—"

"Was left while I was out of the room for three minutes. I never saw him. I just assumed he was the one to leave it."

"Oh he was," Peter said confidently. "The question is: why?"

She patted his good shoulder and took his glass.

"You can ask him when you see him next. Until then, you're supposed to be resting."

He sighed and shifted to a more comfortable position on the couch, then grabbed the remote and turned on ESPN.

Elle paused in the doorway and just looked at him for a moment, knowing very well that his mind was not on the replay of last night's game.

o.o

Four days later, Elle and Peter left the house to go to a follow up appointment to see how his wound was healing. It didn't cause him nearly as much pain unless he stressed it and the therapy they had him doing already was going well. All in all, he'd been a very lucky man.

She caved to his request to not return to his temporary prison, offhandedly citing sympathy for Neal, and took him out to lunch. Neal wasn't mentioned again during lunch, but she knew that his thoughts still lay with the as-yet-unseen forger.

Jones reported each day that Neal hadn't left and Peter wasn't the only one on that phone call who'd been worried from the sound of it.

Not even June was allowed entrance to her tenant's room, though she assured them that he was in there. She delivered meals to his door and took away dishes—even if they weren't nearly as depleted as she'd like—and heard him moving about and even, apparently, singing at one point.

Elle decided that enough was enough and she would be making a visit herself just as soon as she had Peter settled back at the house.

Then they arrived home and opened the door to find that someone had been there in their absence.

"What the hell?" Peter said.

Elle silently agreed.

It wasn't your typical scene of a home invasion. Nothing was missing or broken or out of place, but something had been left behind. A lot of somethings.

Paper cranes in every color of the rainbow, in a hundred different patterned papers, covered every inch of the visible room. There had to be hundreds of them, each folded with the same precision as that first one in the hospital room.

Elle needed to go see Neal. _Now._

o.o

Her first shock came when he opened the door wide. She'd been ready to threaten, cajole, plead, and cry if need be to get past the lock that had kept everyone else out. All of her preparations went to waste.

"Afternoon, Elizabeth. What brings you to my humble abode?" he said, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips.

She had to regroup before she could speak. "Can I come in?"

"Of course," he said and extended a hand.

She stepped past him and looked around. The apartment was pretty much exactly what she'd expected from someone with his sense of style. It fit him. Just like the slacks, button down shirt, and waistcoat he was wearing fit him. He looked... much better than she expected. In fact, she thought, you'd never know anything had happened.

He went to fetch a bottle of wine and two glasses and returned to offer her one.

"Thank you." She looked him in the eye when she said it and that was when she realized what this was.

Neal Caffrey was an expert at making people see what they wanted to see or what he wanted them to see. He could forge a bond or a painting or a signature with very little effort indeed, a personality with less than a thought.

And right now she was looking at some of his finest work.

She wanted it to be real, for him to actually have found a way to deal with what had happened though the medium of a houseful of paper cranes or a half-finished Mona Lisa, but that look at his eyes had told her that it wasn't true.

"Why cranes?"

His mouth twitched again, downward this time, as wrinkles at the corners of his eyes flickered into existence and then back out, nostrils flaring ever so slightly. He shrugged one shoulder, the wine in his glass rising in a wave and settling again with the motion. "They're one of the easiest forms to fold."

"That's why you folded five hundred of them?"

"A thousand." His voice was quiet and intense and his mask cracked a little bit more as he said it. He shored it up with a grin, but she knew it was weaker than it had been. She could see the holes more clearly.

"A thousand origami cranes." She looked around. "Is that all you've done this week?"

He shrugged again, but it was a sharper movement and she could almost see the puppet strings attached as he attempted to mimic his usual carefree air and failed.

"No new cases to work on," he said by way of attempted excuse.

"Yeah," she said slowly. "I heard they caught the guy you were chasing when Peter was shot."

It took everything she had to say that as evenly as she did. Neal didn't do so well with hearing it.

He flinched as if he was the one the bullet had hit. He tried to cover it with a turn to get the bottle to top them off, asking her if she wanted more, but she heard the waver in his voice and knew that he'd needed the excuse to turn away far more than the wine.

Especially since both of their glasses were still full.

He looked at his glass as if momentarily at a loss at what to do with it, then tipped it up and drained it dry. The next portion he poured was far more generous. She bit her lip and looked at her own glass, then thought, _What the hell?_ and followed his example.

He swirled the wine in his glass for a few more seconds, then, mask back in place as well as he could get it, turned and brought the bottle to refill her.

"Thanks," she said.

"My pleasure."

"Neal, it wasn't your fault."

She almost paid for her bluntness in the form of wine stains on her shirt.

His eyes were wide, but didn't quite hit the "innocently confused" air he was aiming for. "I'm sorry?"

"You shouldn't be," she said, deliberately misinterpreting his words.

His face cleared and he looked at her with that intense gaze that always made her wonder what really went on inside that brilliant mind of his.

"Elle," he said, but she knew what denial was coming so she shook her head and interrupted.

"I know you think you're responsible, that the cranes were some kind of apology, but, Neal—"

"A wish."

She blinked. "What?"

"The cranes," he said, retreating to the couch with his bottle and his glass. "Not an apology, a wish."

She frowned and followed, sitting next to him. "I don't understand."

"The story goes that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted a wish." He then grinned in a way that was painfully happy. "I'm not normally a superstitious kind of guy, but I just might believe in this one now that I've seen it work."

She looked at her lap, blinking to try and stave off the tears, knowing even before she started that she would fail.

"Hey now," he said, leaning forward and setting both bottle and glass on the table. "Elle, come on. Please stop crying. Peter's okay, right? I mean, they didn't find something wrong at the appointment today, did they?"

She laughed and shook her head. "No. No, everything's fine. The doctor said he's healing better than they expected, in fact."

The worry that had crept back into his expression and voice subsided. "Well see then?" he said, laying a hand on hers and squeezing. "Everything's going to be fine."

She looked at him, wiping at her eyes. "Is it?"

He frowned. "Yeah. I mean, I think so. Unless..." He looked suddenly uncertain.

"With Peter, yes," she said. "I know he'll be fine. It's..." She laughed. "It's not the first time he's been injured in the line of duty. He'll be a pain in the ass while he heals and until the inquiries are finished, but he'll be okay." She sniffed and turned her hand over to squeeze his. "It's not him I'm worried about."

He tried to smile and laugh it off, pulling back, but she refused to let him go or look away. "I'm fine," he said. "You don't need to worry about me."

"I do, Neal. You're a friend—a good one—and I can't help but worry about you."

He sighed, shoulders dropping."I wish you wouldn't."

She shook her head. "And I wish you wouldn't feel guilty about Peter getting shot. Unfortunately for both of us, it doesn't work like that."

"Maybe it can. I just need to fold some more cranes. It worked once, right?" he said, crooked smile precariously in place.

She returned his smile with a wavering one of her own. "I don't think cranes are going to help this time."

He looked away. "Yeah. I thought not."

"Hey," she said and bent her head to catch his eye. It worked and she held onto that gaze as she said, "That doesn't mean it's hopeless, Neal."

He favored her with that intense look once more.

"You know what? I think you're wrong."

"What?" She blinked and sat up straighter. "About what?"

"About the cranes," he said and stood, heading to the table where a pile of half-folded birds and sheets of unused paper lay.

She sighed, closing her eyes, and then stood and followed. "Neal—"

"Have you ever folded a crane?"

_"Neal."_

"Have you?"

She pressed her lips together, then shook her head. "No. I tried once, but it came out looking more like a duck that had been run over by a garbage truck."

He laughed and the genuine amusement in it lifted her own spirits just a little.

"Well then have a seat," he said and returned to shuffling through the stacks of paper, looking for a particular one apparently.

She did and watched him, resolving to resist his plan to redirect the conversation. "Neal," she started again.

"Hold on. Just..." He held up a finger. "Just hold on. Now, the first step is a valley fold, like this." He touched the corners together and pressed flat, carefully creasing the paper so the bright side was inside and the white side was visible.

"Neal."

"Then do it the other way," he said and turned it, repeating the process. "Then two mountain folds..."

"Neal."

"Then pinch it in like this and... Voila! We have a square base," he said, grinning and holding it up.

She started to speak but he took her hands and put a piece of paper in them. "Now you do it."

She wanted to speak, to tell him that she wasn't buying this, that she knew his tricks, but she'd never seen that look in his eyes. If she didn't know better she'd say it was him begging. She had a hard time imagining Neal Caffrey begging for anything.

She thought that was probably a good thing because it would probably work even better than his charm at getting him what he wanted.

She set the paper on the table and folded it over as he had. "Like this?"

"Yeah. Make sure you line it up and press down. Perfect!"

They spent the next half hour learning how to fold the crane. When it was finished, she was impressed despite herself.

"It actually looks like a crane," she said.

He laughed. "It certainly doesn't look like duck roadkill."

She smiled and set her crane next to the one he'd folded.

When she looked back at him, he had another sheet of paper.

"Nine-hundred and ninety-eight to go."

She took the paper and started the first fold.

"You're right, I blame myself."

The paper slipped and her crease went completely the wrong direction.

"What?"

He just took her paper and gave her a new one.

When she didn't immediately start working again, he gestured at it. She looked down and tried to focus on both folding and listening.

"I have reason to do so. I'm not just a self-aggrandizing martyr. I know not _everything_ is my fault, but this one is."

"Neal—"

"Please don't talk."

Again it was a plea as much as a request and she snapped her jaw shut and kept folding.

"I knew that someone was going to get shot that day. There was no way to avoid it. I know Edwards well enough to know that part was inevitable. I didn't tell Peter this because he would have insisted on doing things differently and that wouldn't have worked either. This was the only way. What I _didn't_ expect, was that Edwards would shoot anyone but me."

Her head shot up and she stared at him.

He shrugged again, half smile on his face. "The guy's wanted me dead for the better part of the last decade."

"Then why did you go in? Neal, if you knew—"

"There was no other way."

When he said it with that much certainty...

She sighed and went back to her crane when he nodded at it.

"I've spent my time since we last met avoiding him to keep this very thing from happening, but then he started hurting people. I couldn't let him keep doing that. he'd kill someone eventually. I figured if it happened to be me in the course of his being arrested... Well, that's probably the least I owe karma for some of my own sins."

She finished her crane and set it next to the other six. Once Neal was free to fold at his own pace he was pretty quick.

"So yeah, I expected someone to get shot. But I never thought it would be Peter. I..." He blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. "I still don't know why it was. I gave Edwards every reason to shoot me, but he... he didn't."

He turned and looked at her. "Now do you see? It _is_ my fault."

She shook her head. "No. It's not."

He opened his mouth, but this time she shut him down with a look.

"Whether you knew he was going to shoot someone or not, whatever information you kept from Peter, this was not your fault. You didn't pull the trigger—"

"I might as well have!"

She gave him a stern look and he quieted. "You didn't. I don't blame you. Peter doesn't blame you."

"He would if he knew the truth."

Now she glared. "Stop it. You know he wouldn't. He'd be mad you kept things from him and that you tried to commit suicide, but he would not blame you."

He smiled slightly. "Really? You think so?"

"I know so," she said and picked up another piece of paper.

"Elle." He laid a hand on hers and she looked at him. He faltered for a moment, mouth working, then finally just said, "Thank you."

She smiled, feeling tears well up again. "Like I said: You're a good friend, Neal."

"Maybe. But that doesn't mean I deserve an even better friend like you."

She laughed and pulled him into a hug, letting the tears fall and holding him tightly.

And if she felt a little wetness soak into her shoulder she didn't say a thing about it, because she was pretty sure he had that backwards.

Her phone rang, breaking them apart and she dug it out and looked at the caller ID. He smiled and went back to folding more cranes as she answered the phone.

"Hi, honey. Everything okay?" She listened for a moment, then glanced at Neal who smiled back at her. "Nope. Everything's just fine here."

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><p>Love any comments you guys have, if you would be so kind as to share! :)<p>

Cheers,

Maja


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